


what we rebuild (and what we can't)

by yellowribbons



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force-Sensitive Finn, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 04:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11433546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowribbons/pseuds/yellowribbons
Summary: the things we must protect and the people we must healor, finn and poe adjust to life on d'qar





	1. the pilot

When Poe Dameron is captured by the First Order and imprisoned in the Starkiller Base, he never once thinks that help would come for him in the form of a Stormtrooper. Frankly, he isn’t sure help would even come at all. The Starkiller Base is almost impenetrable, and the soldiers are loyal to Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren, whose methods are brutal and who is nothing short of relentless. Poe has heard of the incredible power of the Force before, but has never had the unpleasant opportunity to experience it within his mind. As soon as he does, he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to close his eyes again.

Help does come, however, and when Poe meets the Stormtrooper who becomes his ticket off the Base, he doesn’t hesitate to trust him. 

They steal off in a TIE fighter, the Stormtrooper on defense and Poe on navigation.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Poe yells over the sound of blasters firing.

“FN-2187!” the Stormtrooper replies. “That’s the only name they ever gave me.”

Poe recoils; he knew the First Order soldiers were almost clones of one another, but he didn’t think they went as far as removing a man’s identity. “FN, huh? Is it alright if I call you Finn?”

Finn grins. “‘Finn.’ Yeah. ‘Finn.’ I like that!”

“I’m Poe. Poe Dameron. Good to meet you, Finn,” Poe says.

“Good to meet you too, Poe!” he answers.

And then they crash.

 

When Poe comes to, he can’t find the TIE fighter, BB-8, or Finn anywhere. It’s night, and he doesn’t want to have to face it by himself.

He can already feel the fear setting in, and he laughs despite himself. Every mound of sand looks like an assassin and every star looks like a bolt of light energy, and he _knows_ none of it is real, but he can’t shake the feeling that something is coming for him. Usually, at a time like this, BB-8 would swoop in, making sure Poe kept his mind on the objective and keeping _its_ eye on the man with whom it has completed so many missions.

But BB-8 is not here. Poe is completely alone.  

He gets up and begins walking.

 

He walks until the sun rises, and then keeps walking some more. He can only see sand, miles and miles of sand, with no end in sight.

And then—there—just there—movement in the distance.

Poe starts running towards it, waving his arms and shouting. The speeder, in its rough construction, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, all but flying over the desert sand towards him. The people on it are just as beautiful, offering him water and some food. He can rest.

After he wakes up, Poe offers to take control of the speeder. “Just tell me where you’re going, and I can surely get you there.”

The locals are hesitant, but Poe quickly reassures them. “You’ve all been so kind to me. Let me make it up to you. Rest.” He pilots the speeder for the rest of the journey, swapping stories and joking with them. When he leaves the speeder in the next town they come across, a Blarina alien on the speeder stops him. He tells Poe that he is impressed, and he promises to take Poe to a ship and get him back to the Resistance. 

“You must be pretty valuable to them,” he says.

And Poe shakes his head sadly. _Not that valuable_ , he thinks.   

 

Poe returns to the Resistance, happy to finally be back home. His happiness doesn’t completely mask his shame at failing in his mission, though. He lost the final piece of the map to Luke Skywalker, a breakthrough that could save the universe from the First Order, but he also lost his best friend, BB-8.

In a meeting with General Leia Organa, he talks of his travels, of Finn, and of his failure. He asks for her to forgive him, and she smiles.

“Oh, BB-8 will find his way back to us. He’s a smart droid,” she says, appreciatively. “And this Finn—he seems like a good man. We could use him on our side.” Poe grins. “But for now, Poe, we need to act as if these things will never happen. We need to look forward. There is a lot of work to be done.”

Poe nods and straightens his back.  

 

Adjusting to life back on D’Qar is hard for Poe.

On Jakku, every moment was devoted to his return to the Resistance, but now, with no clear goal to fixate on, Poe is lost. He begins to have nightmares, nightmares that had not occurred before. They are terrible, and always the same: Darkness and then a flash of red. Poe starts staying up later and later, hoping exhaustion will drive the dreams away, but the dark circles that develop under his eyes are the only result of his efforts.

Poe isolates himself. He stops going out with his fellow pilots on the weekends, stops talking to his friends almost completely. He only works towards the next goal, the next mission, desperate to find something to replace the fear in his life.     

 

When BB-8 rolls up to Poe, he is almost shocked into disbelief. It begins beeping erratically, a flurry of _I couldn’t find you_ and _We finished the mission_ and _I found a friend_ and _Are you okay?_ Poe laughs, and starts to answer as best he can—and then he registers BB-8’s beeps.

_I found a friend._

Poe looks up.   

The first thing Poe notices when he sees Finn again is how much _better_ he looks.

Gone is the terrified Stormtrooper he met in the halls of the Starkiller Base, and in his place stands a much more self-assured, optimistic man.

He wears confidence well.

The second thing he notices when he sees Finn again is that he’s wearing his jacket.

Poe doesn’t hesitate to think that Finn wears that well, too, and he grins as he begins to run towards him, his own fatigue melting away in his urgency to make sure that Finn is _there_ and that he is _alive_ and that he isn’t going anywhere. Finn begins running, too, and soon they are holding onto each other, relieved.

Finn pulls away first, and Poe can’t help but feel empty for a few moments. He pushes that aside, though, and smiles. “You’re wearing my jacket.”

“Oh!” Finn at least has the decency to look guilty about it, and he looks down, tugging the jacket off. “Yeah, I found it in the wreckage and all. I thought you were gone, so I took it. I’ll just give it ba—”

“No, no, no,” Poe interrupts, shaking his head, and Finn looks up sharply. “It suits you.”

He tries not to stare as Finn puts it back on.

 

The next few days are spent in a whirlwind of planning and getting ready to take out the First Order once and for all. Poe is confident in Finn’s plan, and so is the rest of the Resistance. Finn has given them valuable information from his time as a Stormtrooper, information that will lead them to take out Kylo Ren and the new Death Star before he destroys the Resistance.

In private, Finn takes about Rey, telling Poe the story of how he met her. His eyes light up when he talks about her, and Poe can see how highly he thinks of her. Finn tells him that when he gets to the Starkiller Base, he’s going to try to get her out too.

Poe laughs, and says, “Finn, buddy, if everything you’re saying about her holds true, I wouldn’t be surprised if she breaks out herself and shows up here brandishing Ren’s lightsaber.”

Finn just shakes his head and smiles.

 

Poe flies through the darkness, and then he’s falling and there isn’t anything to catch him because there isn’t anything _there_ and he wakes up, screaming, his shirt drenched in sweat. He takes it off and throws it to the side, gathering his sheets around him. He tries to slow his breathing.

BB-8 hums on the floor next to him, the familiar sound a comfort even amidst the complete and total darkness.

 

When the day of the ambush finally arrives, Poe is ready to fly. His mind races through the battle strategies, and he tries to find flaws in them; having a back-up plan in case something goes wrong has always reassured him.

He has spent most of his days leading up to the attack with his T-70, preparing it for battle. It calms him—his fighter has always felt like home—but he can’t shake the intensity of the next mission: As he nears the date of his return to Starkiller Base, he knows he will be returning to danger and the source of his newfound anxiety. His renewed purpose—fighting—cannot shield him from the premonition that something terrible is going to happen.

He is just trying to figure out what he would do if one of his wings is hit when he spots Finn walking towards him across the landing field. He claps him on the shoulder, _be safe_ his silent plea.

Finn nods.

Poe flies.

 

General Organa postpones the debriefing once the team returns; the Resistance celebrates its victory. 

 

When Poe hears that Finn has been hurt, he immediately rushes to the medbay. He meets Rey for the first time on the way, all bright eyes and arm wraps and hair buns and _warrior_ , and she fills him in, describing what happened on the ground. She starts with Han Solo, telling him about Solo’s fateful meeting with his son.

She chokes up. “I just—I just wanted him to be there for me. He felt like my—what I would want in a—father.”

Poe waits for her to compose herself. She wipes away a tear, and he rests a hand on her shoulder. He says nothing, which seems to be enough.

Rey squares her shoulders. “As Finn and I escaped, Kylo Ren followed us. Finn had Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber from our visit to Maz, a smuggler who lives on Takodana, and he immediately began fighting him. Ren was too powerful though, and he sliced his back up badly.”

“He took a lightsaber to the back?” Poe asks incredulously. “Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Rey answers. “I really hope so. He’s a good man.”

 

Seeing Finn lying face-down on a hospital bed is one of the hardest things Poe has had to witness. Finn is shirtless, his sliced-up jacket and long sleeve shirt in a pile next to his bed, and Poe can see the wound, a large gash in the middle of his back. He’s seen bad wounds before—he’s even _had_ bad wounds before—but nothing like this. Kylo Ren knows what he is doing. If Finn recovers, the scar will take up the greater portion of his back, and even then, Poe doesn’t know if he’d ever be able to walk again. Poe’s chest clenches, and he breathes slowly out.

Rey looks over at him. “It’s not pretty.”

“It’s a clean cut, though. One of the perks of it being a lightsaber wound,” Poe says bitterly, and he hates himself for thinking that it is almost beautiful in construction. The perfect wound.

They’re interrupted by one of the doctors. “Visitors are not allowed at this point in time. I am going to have to ask you two to leave.”

Poe nods. He’s not sure how much of this he can take, but Rey is livid. “We need to see our friend,” she says. “How can we be sure he’s okay unless we’re right here by his side?”

“I’m afraid I cannot allow that right now,” the doctor says, sadly. “You will be informed when you can see him soon.”

“Okay, thank you, Doctor.” Poe begins backing out, still in a daze, still not quite believing that Finn isn’t okay. He picks up the pile of clothes, turning the jacket over in his hands. Clean cut. No frays. He vows to fix it so that Finn still has it when he wakes up—and if he doesn’t wake up, so that _he_ has something left of Finn. “C’mon, Rey. He’ll be here.”

Rey walks over to squeeze Finn’s hand, and then follows Poe out.

 

“You gave that to him, didn’t you?” Rey asks quietly on their walk from the medbay. She nods towards the jacket. “He didn’t take it off except to lend it to me when we were escaping from the base. I’m not exactly acclimated to the cold, having grown up on Jakku.” She laughs. “It means a lot to him, I think.”

“It’s not like he had any other clothes,” Poe says. “Anyway, I’m going to try to fix it up before he wakes.” He pauses. Swallows. “If he wakes.”

“He will,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced either.

 

Poe tries not to make it too obvious that he’s checking up on Finn at least once a day, but at night, when he resumes sewing up Finn’s jacket, trying everything he can to fend off sleep, BB-8 rolls over to his perch on his bed and nudges his leg. _Finn will be okay_ , it beeps.

“I really hope so,” Poe replies, turning the needle over in his hands. “I’m just worried about him, you know? I don’t want him to die, and even if he wakes up, I don’t want him to not be able to do the things he wants to do. It’s hard watching this and not knowing what’s going to happen and not being able to do anything to help it.”

_You care about him_. A statement, not a question.

“Yes,” Poe breathes out, as if he has been waiting to say this for a long time.

 

Poe hears General Organa talking to Rey before she leaves. “He would’ve been proud of you,” she says, smiling. Rey returns her smile, eyes watering, before she hugs the woman again.

 

“What? Are you going to leave without saying goodbye?” Poe calls, smiling as Rey turns around. He catches her as he is walking to the mess hall for dinner.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she laughs. “Actually, I was planning on visiting Finn before I left. Want to come?”

Poe follows her down the hallway to the medbay. “So Luke Skywalker, huh?”

“Yeah,” she breathes. “It feels surreal. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I meet him—or if he’s even still going to be there. I don’t even know what I’m going to _say_. I wonder if he knows I’m coming—do you think he’s waiting for someone to find him? What if he hates me?”

Poe smiles. Her anxiety is misplaced as far as he can tell; there is no way Luke Skywalker wouldn’t like her. “I think he’ll like you just fine. I wish you luck, but I don’t think you’ll be needing a lot of it.”

She laughs, overwhelmed, and the three buns on her head shake. “Hopefully.”

They arrive outside Finn’s room, and look inside. Still not awake. “I’ll, uh, just give you a minute,” Poe says. He moves to give Rey some privacy, his back to the window into the room.

Rey nods, not looking at him, and walks inside.

She is only in there for a few moments, and Poe hears the soft murmurs of her voice through the open door. He looks in the window just as she gets up to leave, and he sees her press a silent kiss to Finn’s brow. _Wake up_ , her lips move.

He looks down.

 

His nightmares include Finn’s voice now. He is never able to save him from the darkness either, and he always wakes up, screaming, to a sweat drenched bed and the hum of BB-8.

 

Poe is performing a maintenance check on his T-70 after a particularly long mission when General Organa interrupts him. He quickly stands, wiping his grease-stained hands on a spare towel, and pushes the hair out of his face.

“General,” he begins. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you, but I’m almost finished, if you’ll excuse the mess.” He gestures to the disarray around him and wonders what news would warrant a special visit in the middle of the day.

“I will,” she replies, a mischievous glimmer in her eye. “I just wanted to report that Rey has found Luke; she got a message through this morning.”

“That’s—that’s great!” Poe says. “How’s she doing? Did she say?”

“She’s okay, and she says that she might be staying awhile. She wants to train under Luke and learn as much as she can before she returns.”

“Okay, great! That’s really awesome.”

“I told her you said hi.” He nods his thanks. “And Poe?”

He looks up, meeting her gaze. “Yes?”

“Finn’s awake.”

Poe’s eyes widen, and he drops his towel. “R-really?”

“Of course,” she says, as if Finn’s life hadn’t been hanging in the balance for a few weeks. “Go while he’s still awake. The mess will still be here when you return.”

Poe resists the urge to immediately sprint off across the airfield and to the medbay, and he throws proper soldier-general etiquette out of the window, letting his happiness overwhelm him as he hugs General Organa, almost lifting her off the ground in his haste. She laughs and utters, “Don’t let this happen again, Poe,” before hugging him back.

 

Finn is still lying on his stomach when Poe gets to the medbay, bandages wrapped around his back. Poe knocks quietly on the door and then walks in, trying to make as little sound as possible. He doesn’t want to disturb Finn or give him cause for any alarm. He settles into a chair that has been set by Finn’s hospital bed and looks over at him.

“Hi, Poe,” Finn says, his voice cracking. He clears his throat. “Can you, uh, get me that water?” He points to a glass with a straw in it on the table next to him. “The doctors say I have to keep hydrated.”

Poe picks the glass up and moves it over to Finn, resting the straw between his lips. “How’re you feeling?” he asks.

“Better,” Finn says, after he finishes his drink. Poe moves it back to the table. “I mean, I’m officially conscious now. Might fall asleep again soon, so try not to hold it against me.” He laughs, some of the old brightness returning to his eyes. Poe smiles.

“I’ve—we’ve—been worried sick about you here, Finn,” he says. “We didn’t know if you’d wake up.”

“Well, here I am.” Finn smiles. “Is Rey still here?”

“She left a few days ago, actually. Went to go find Luke Skywalker. She’s made contact, too, and she’s planning on staying for a while. She’s going to learn how to be a Jedi.”

“Oh.” There is a trace of sadness in Finn’s voice. “I wish I could have seen her before she left.”

“She came by to see you,” says Poe. He keeps his voice light, unaffected, and looks down at his hands. “She stopped by a lot.”

“That’s good. I just wish I could have seen her.”

They are both silent for a few moments. Poe memorizes the way Finn’s scar cuts across his body, and Finn, who sees him looking, breaks the silence, quietly asking, “Do you have any?”

“Yeah, I do,” Poe says. “None quite as big as that one, but I have a lot of smaller ones all over my body.” He shrugs. “I’ve gotten used to not seeing unmarred skin. War happens.”

Finn looks skeptical, as if he can see past the nonchalance Poe is adopting, but says nothing more on the matter. “Do you think I’m going to be okay?” he asks instead.

“Of course. You’re awake, and that has to count for something. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

“And if I’m not?”

Poe closes his eyes, tight. One, two beats pass, and then he forces himself to open them again. “Well, then you’ll just have to put up with me wheeling you around everywhere.”

Finn smiles, all teeth and joy and light and _pure_ , and it takes less than a moment for Poe to get completely caught up in it.

 

The news that Finn is awake spreads throughout the base like wildfire. He is lauded as a hero.

 

Poe takes walks around D’Qar at night whenever he wakes up from his nightmares. He tries to pick a different route each night, varying what he sees, trying to figure out what gives him security, what keeps him grounded. He walks as if he has a purpose, sure-footed steps leading him all across the base until he finds himself so tired he must turn away from wherever he ends up and find his way back to his room.

It takes Poe five nights of this to realize that all of his routes end at the medbay.

 

“We can get you a bed, if you’ll be staying long. It’s not that much trouble.”

It is after dinner, and Poe is visiting Finn when two doctors come in to check on him. They clean Finn’s wound and change the bandages, proclaiming that he should be released from the medbay soon as his wound has healed almost completely, though there is a striking scar. Finn has taken to walking around his room, restless, anxious to leave and put his time in the medbay behind him. They’ve noticed Poe’s increased presence at Finn’s bedside and look skeptical when he replies to their offer in the negative. 

“Oh, no,” Poe says, shaking his head. “That’s okay. I have to leave early anyway. I have some routine maintenance checks to do.” The doctors look at him, unconvinced. “It’s protocol,” he offers, weakly.

“Well, just let us know if you’ll be needing one, if you change your mind. You look like you could use some sleep.” They quietly make their way out of the room.

Poe settles in what has been deemed “his chair” and turns his attention to Finn, who has watched the exchange in silence, pulling a napkin-wrapped package out of his jacket pocket. “Here.” He sets it on the table as Finn sits up. “They had sweet-sand cookies at dinner tonight. I grabbed an extra.”

“Really? For me? I’ve never had a cookie before.” Finn looks so excited at the small gesture; even after spending so much time together it still baffles Poe to learn how much Finn has yet to experience. The First Order had taken Finn’s life from him, and Poe is just glad that Finn has the chance to take it back.

Finn’s eyes widen after he takes a bite. “This is like heaven—how do people condense heaven into something so light? Is this even possible? The Dark Side doesn’t have _these_. I’m sure if they did, though, production would skyrocket. Hell, even I’d go back.” He takes another bite.

“Welcome to our side, buddy.” Poe’s whole face lights up in amusement as he wordlessly vows to find more cookies for Finn.

Finn is silent as he finishes his cookie, quietly examining Poe. “You don’t really have maintenance, do you?”

“No,” Poe exhales. He sees no point in lying.

Finn looks away. Then, gently, “Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“General Organa came by a few days ago, and she was telling me about my living arrangements after I’m released. She said I could either have my own room or room with someone, and well, I was just maybe wondering perhaps if you have any more room in your, uh, room.” He looks up quickly. “I mean it’s completely okay if you don’t have extra room or you think I’d be a burden or something, but you’re the only person I really know.”

Poe grins, mind already constructing their shared life together, racing through different ways he could rearrange his room so that Finn would have his own space, too. He’d have to get rid of some of his old junk before Finn moved in, but that was okay—it would be a good excuse for some much-needed spring cleaning.

“Of course, buddy.”

Finn looks visibly relieved and lets out a breath he’d been holding in. “I was worried you’d say no.”

“I could never say no to you, Finn,” Poe laughs.  

Finn hesitates. “Stay? For tonight?”

Now it’s Poe’s turn to hesitate. He tries to imagine a scenario where Finn doesn’t find out about his nightmares, isn’t completely repulsed by the fact that he is alone and weak, that he isn’t as brave and strong and _daring_ as everyone believes he is—as Finn _himself_ is—and he can’t find any. He’s scared by the fact that Finn will learn about them sooner rather than later, but he straightens his shoulders. It’s probably best for Finn to find out before he moves in with him; that way, he can make other arrangements before being released from the medbay.

“I’ll be here.”

 

They stay up, sitting side by side on Finn’s tiny hospital bed and talking late into the night, sharing anything and everything about themselves. Poe regales Finn with tales of his childhood and some of the more successful Resistance missions, and Finn tells him of his friends in the First Order and of his training. They laugh at Poe’s childhood antics and marvel at the militaristic style of the First Order, but choose not to dwell on the darkness for too long.

“I didn’t need a pilot,” Finn says quietly, after he’s finished telling Poe _his_ side of the events leading to their meeting.

“What?” Poe asks, confused.

“When I broke you out of the interrogation room, I didn’t need a pilot. I wasn’t thinking of needing a pilot.”

Poe swallows. “What were you thinking of?”

“I would’ve helped you escape, and then….” He trails off. There is no feeling in his eyes, as if he hasn’t any real emotion left in his body. His hands remain in his lap, lifeless.  

“You would’ve remained on the base?”

“You didn’t deserve to die. You did nothing wrong.”

Poe sits up so that he can look Finn in the eyes. “Finn, they would’ve killed you.”

“I know. I never thought I’d get a chance to leave. I didn’t deserve to leave,” he finishes, and Poe is overwhelmed.

Here is a man who had been indoctrinated from birth to kill any sort of kindness he felt, to stifle any measure of good in his body, who had managed to overcome every obstacle thrown at him, who chose to willingly lay down his life for a man he never met just so that he could do some good, so that he could feel as if he had made some kind of difference.

“I have nightmares, you know,” Finn continues. “That’s why I wanted you to stay. If I don’t sleep, I won’t see them.”

Poe’s eyes widen. He has never thought—but, of course. Finn has been through hell over the years— _worse_ than hell, worse than anything Poe has ever experienced in his thirty-two years of life—losing his sense of self, his friends, his family, his purpose, and after escaping Starkiller Base with his freedom, went back into that very base to confront the people who had taken it away from him in the first place. Of course Finn has nightmares.  

“Do you—do you want to talk about them?” Poe asks. “I, uh, I get them, too.”

Finn nods, as if confirming something he already knows. “Two of the same kind, huh.” He laughs, bitterly. “What’re yours about?”

“Nothing.” Finn looks surprised. Poe shakes his head, his hair falling into his face. “No, really. Nothing. They’re just black. Then there’s a flash of red, and I wake up.”

“Mine have people. I can never save them.” His eyes are cold. “I never save them.”

Poe reaches his arms around Finn and pulls him close, moving his hand in circles on Finn’s back, slow, comforting. He didn’t deserve this, to feel as if he wasn’t good enough, to hate himself for what he could not control. Poe holds him for what feels like days and doesn’t even notice the pool of tears on his right shoulder until long after Finn has fallen asleep.

 

Poe leaves after he makes sure Finn is sleeping comfortably, breaking his promise to stay for the night. He rationalizes it by telling himself that if it’s already morning by the time he leaves, the promise has been fulfilled, but it doesn’t stop his heart from practically beating out of his chest as he softly creeps out of Finn’s room. He goes back to his own room and sews up the final portion of Finn’s jacket, and then, when the light has just begun to peak out over the airport tarmac and in through his window, he gathers up the finished product, grabs two muffins from the mess hall, and goes back to the medbay to meet Finn.  

Finn is already awake by the time he gets there, and Poe mentally curses his inability to _just stay_ with him. He tosses him a muffin as he sinks into his chair. Finn catches it deftly from the air and begins to turn it over in his hands, examining Poe.

“You left,” Finn said, and Poe is struck by how curious his voice sounds, as if simply wanting to understand _why_ he left instead of letting his emotions overcome him.

Poe lays the jacket down on the bed, a peace offering. “I fixed this.”

Finn doesn’t move for a few moments, and then, as if seeing something in Poe he hasn’t before—like the circles under his eyes or the way he’s holding his head up or how he’s configured in his chair—he nods, picks the jacket up, and slowly slides into it.

 

When Poe returns back to his room at the end of the day, he almost collapses from exhaustion. That night there are no nightmares. He doesn’t even dream.


	2. the jedi

Poe stays with Finn every day from then on, counting down to Finn’s final day in the medbay. Some days they play board games, other days they just sit and talk. They end up sitting and talking enough that Poe is almost running out of the more interesting stories from his career as a pilot and the more embarrassing stories from his childhood and might have to resort to telling Finn embarrassing tales from his time with the Resistance. He hopes it won’t come to that, though.

Finn mostly talks about Rey, only bringing up his Stormtrooper past when confronted directly with it. When Poe does bring it up, Finn’s eyes go dark, and he seems to view the world in blood—his blood, his friends’ blood, his nonexistent family’s blood—so Poe tends to stay away from this topic of discussion. He doesn’t always view Rey as a suitable replacement, especially with the way Finn’s eyes light up whenever she is mentioned, but he lets it go. He can’t hate her no matter how hard he tries, and even when he’s feeling his most intolerable, he can’t even fault her. She makes Finn smile. And so, for now, Poe will wait for Finn to figure things out once Rey returns, but he is still afraid that Finn’s already decided on her.

Finn moves into Poe’s room without much ceremony, his only possessions being the set of clothes he arrived on D’Qar wearing, and Poe’s jacket. Poe promises to take him to raid the Resistance Lost and Found and offers his own clothes to the man. Finn only laughs, though, and says that he wouldn’t want to take anything more of Poe’s. Poe frowns a little, but relents. The Lost and Found it is.

Finn is completely taken by the expanse of the Lost and Found, his eyes widening in amazement as he finds that there is a _room_ for the Lost and Found, and not some crummy little trash chute.  

“I’ve never seen so much _stuff_ before!” he exclaims, before running around and touching every item he can get his hands on.

“And all of it’s yours, buddy,” Poe says, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall. “Take your time.”

Finn’s eyes go wider—as if that were even possible—and he methodically makes his way through the piles of clothes. By the times he’s ready to leave, he’s taken six new shirts, four pairs of pants, two shoes that look barely worn, a pilot’s helmet, and more books than Poe can carry.

“We might need to take a couple trips,” he says, laughing.

Over the next few days, even more books begin to appear in Poe’s room, and soon he thinks he might be able to start a small library with all that Finn’s collected. Finn only grins sheepishly when confronted about the growing amount of reading material and looks not at all ashamed, instead sinking further into educating himself about all of the historical events the First Order never let him know. Poe even teaches Finn a bit of binary so that he can understand BB-8. Finn has grown tired of asking Poe to be his in-house translator, but he catches onto binary quickly and even finds a few books—surprise, surprise—on it lying around the base.

Poe and Finn settle into their version of normal; while war preparations are being made, Poe often finds himself getting ready for new missions and battles, and Finn keeps expanding his knowledge of the world as much as humanly possible.

They are content as the world falls into place around them.

 

And then it begins to fall apart.

 

General Organa calls Finn and Poe to see her, saying it’s urgent. They arrive in her control room in the early morning. It is spacious, with holograms and data pads and surveillance devices that greet them as they enter.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you both could make it,” she says in greeting, gesturing for them to make themselves at home. They sit down.

“Now, I’m sure you’re both wondering why I called you here,” the general continues. “As you both know, Rey has been training with Luke for the past several weeks. Just last night, I received word from Luke that they will be returning to D’Qar so that Rey can become more of an active part of the Resistance; apparently some things have come up, and Luke can’t teach her all she needs to know before this war will end so she’ll be learning as she goes. I’m sure she’ll want to tell you more about all this herself, though.”

Finn looks about ready to jump out of his seat he is so excited. “When exactly will she be getting here?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Finn exclaims. “That’s fantastic—but oh, there’s so little time to do anything special, welcome her back—”

“Finn,” Poe interjects, “I’m fairly sure the entire Resistance base will be there when she lands, ready to welcome her back.” He looks at Finn kindly, and his heart clenches. “That will be enough for her.”

Finn nods, thinking.

“Well, make your necessary preparations. I’m very happy myself that she’ll be back. I’d grown quite fond of Rey in her short time here.” General Organa looks down at her hands. “Anyway, that’s all I need from you, Poe. Finn, if you’d stay here for a bit.”

Surprised, Finn sits back down and shoots Poe a worried glance. _You’ll be fine_ , he tries to say with his eyes and hopes that Finn will understand. 

“General.” Poe nods. She inclines her head as he leaves.

Poe waits outside, the time passing agonizingly slowly, worst case scenarios detailing why the general pulled Finn aside running through his mind all the while. The sun has almost set by the time Finn appears in the doorway of the general’s control room, and he seems surprised to see that Poe stayed.

“You didn’t have to stay, you know. That took much longer than I thought it would,” he says.

“Well, I did,” Poe replies. He doesn’t ask what took Finn so long; he figures that if he wants him to know, he’ll tell him. Poe falls into step beside Finn as they walk back to their quarters, silent, save for the soft padding of their feet down the hall. Finn appears to be in deep thought.  

It is only when they are back in the privacy of their room that Poe breaks the silence. “So, that’s exciting, you know, Rey coming back and all.”

“Yeah,” Finn replies, still distracted. He walks around their room, throwing clothes and books from the floor into two piles on his bed.

“Are you planning anything?” Poe asks. “Anything special?”

Finn sits down abruptly. “I’m Force-sensitive.”

“Oh. I, uh, I didn’t know that,” Poe says, trying to make the situation normal, as if Finn has only just announced that he likes watching sunsets or eating cake. “That’s good, though, right?” He turns, fully facing Finn.

“It explains a lot.” Finn swallows. “Breaking conditioning. Using the lightsaber. I’ve been reading, and apparently only Force-users can use them effectively. I can… _sense_ people, too. I feel their presence. I never knew what exactly it meant, but it’s not as normal as I thought it was. General Organa explained it to me because she feels it, too.”

“Are you okay?” Poe asks.

“I just need time to sort it all out.”

Poe nods, slowly gathering some extra clothes. “I’ll spend the night in Snap’s room, give you some space.”

He is almost sure Finn doesn’t even notice him leave.

 

Snap welcomes him in, no questions asked like he’s done so many times before, and Poe crashes on his couch. And for the first time in a long time, Poe dreams. He dreams of a life with Finn, waking up to him sleeping by his side, making him breakfast, traveling. He dreams of taking him back home to meet his parents once the war was won, and when he wakes up, Poe realizes he’s been smiling.

 

Poe meets with Finn later that morning on the landing field. Almost half the Resistance has turned up for Rey’s return, and the field is packed. It takes Poe almost five minutes of scanning the crowd to find Finn, and then another three to stop losing him in the sea of people.

“Better?” he asks, cautiously, as he slides up next to Finn, whose eyes are already fixed on the horizon.

“More confused than ever, but I’m getting there,” Finn says, softly. “Sorry for kicking you out.”

“You didn’t kick me out,” Poe says. “I left. Might make it tradition, leaving. Seems like I do it enough.”

His attempt at humor doesn’t fall flat, and Finn laughs, his eyes sparkling. “You always come back, though, and that’s good enough for me.”

Poe opens his mouth to respond, but someone shouts, “The Millennium Falcon! I see it!” and his chance is cut off as Finn turns back to the sky and back to Rey. The crowd is electrified, practically buzzing as they wait to welcome two of their heroes back home.

The Falcon lands smoothly—Poe can’t help but feel envious of Rey in that moment; he’s wanted to fly the legendary starship since he could walk—and time appears to slow as Rey and Luke Skywalker make their descent from the ship.

And then—there is a great cheering from the Resistance, and Finn is running across the field to meet Rey, scooping her up off the ground and holding her tight, her legs tossing this way and that. Luke makes his way over to General Organa, who’d been standing off to the side, and they appear to have a conversation that spans years without saying anything at all. Poe wonders if that’s what it’s like to have the Force, a constant _knowing_ at the back of your mind that you can tap into at will.

Poe’s lost sight of Finn and Rey and is caught up in looking for them when he’s suddenly pulled into a hug from behind.

“Poe!”

“Hi, Rey,” he laughs. “Welcome back.”

“I see you’ve been taking good care of Finn since I left,” she says, throwing an arm around Finn, who blushes. Poe can’t help but think that they fit together perfectly, two war heroes with the universe at their fingertips and the rest of their lives ahead of them.

“He’s a fighter,” Poe says. “It’s not so much me taking care of Finn as it is Finn taking care of me.”

Rey laughs, buns shaking, and mouths a quick _Thank you_ as Finn looks down. _Of course_ , Poe silently says back, and as Finn looks back up, Rey bounces on her heels and all but demands that they come to meet Luke Skywalker.

“You’re acting like this is an everyday occurrence,” Poe says, following Rey and Finn over to where General Organa and Luke are standing, surrounded by people trying to catch a few minutes with the famous Jedi. “Luke Skywalker is a _legend_. Almost as much of a legend as the general.”

Rey rolls her eyes before bounding up to General Organa and giving her a hug. Luke watches on in mild amusement, all mystery and peace and Light and _harmony_.

“Luke,” Rey begins, “this is Finn and Poe. Finn is the ex-Stormtrooper I told you about, and Poe is the greatest pilot in the Resistance.”

Finn waves, and Poe reaches out a hand to shake Luke’s.

“It’s a pleasure meeting you both,” Luke says, warmly. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of you, Finn. We have much to discuss.” Finn nods, looking a bit frazzled. “And Poe—Leia has told me much about your skill as a pilot.”

Poe positively _beams_. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t let your head get too big, Dameron,” General Organa admonishes, but she is grinning all the same. She straightens, becoming a general once again. “Well, Luke, it’d probably be best if you came inside. We can talk freely about what’s going to be happening in the coming weeks. Rey, you remember D’Qar, don’t you? You can have your old room, and we have some training grounds for sparring. I assume you’ll want to keep training with Luke while you’re here. For now, though, take the day. It might be the last one you three get for a while.”     

 

They hike to the top of a hill overlooking the base, Finn and Rey excitedly catching up on everything they had done in each other’s absence and Poe trailing behind. He figures he’s probably going to have to get used to this.

The base looks small from their vantage point on the hill, the landing field no more than the length of a thumb in the distance. The sun is just beginning to set, and the sky is on fire, burning pink and red and yellow while the blues and purples of twilight creep in, softly. Poe’s always been astounded by sunsets, their magic having never faded since the first time he truly experienced one. His father had taken him out on the roof of their home on Yavin 4, simply instructing him to stay silent and watch the skyline. Poe had been antsy, but he did what his father asked, albeit a bit begrudgingly. His silence had been worth it, though, when the sky burst into flame and he experienced one of—what he considered—the most beautiful phenomena in the world.

“What’re you thinking about?” Finn asks softly, gently nudging Poe out of his thoughts.

Poe shakes his head, as if doing so will clear it. Almost all of the pink in the sky is gone, replaced by an ever-darkening purple. “Sunsets.”

“Ah,” Finn replies. He looks out over D’Qar. “We didn’t get to see a lot of these as Stormtroopers. Always being on Starkiller and everything.”

“They’re nice.”

Finn shrugs. “They give way to darkness.”

Rey is silent.

 

They talk late into the night, sitting in a triangle, knees touching. Poe is content, even though this night is so very different from the free nights he’s had in the past. Nights of heavy liquor and easy smiles and a warm, shared bed. At the time, those nights felt like freedom. But he’s beginning to think this feels like freedom, too.

“You’re stronger with the Force now though, aren’t you?” Finn asks Rey.

“Well, yes,” Rey says, “and no. There’s still so much for me to learn and master. I feel like I’ve gotten a crash course in being a Jedi over the past few weeks, and while it feels natural—it comes more naturally to me than anything I’ve ever done before, honestly—it’s still really scary and new. I’ve kind of been thrown into the war and while this is what I want, it’s also not what I want at all. I have even more questions about everything, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to get any answers.”

“You will,” Poe says. “Someone has to know about you. You’ll find out where you came from, and you’ll figure out where you belong.”

Rey nods. “That’s the thing.” She pauses, swallows. “So I didn’t want to tell you guys immediately, and I was going to wait until tomorrow, but I figure now’s as good a time as any: Luke isn’t telling me everything. There are things that have been… _happening_ …and I _know_ he knows what’s going on. He just won’t explain anything to me, and that’s leading me to believe the answer isn’t exactly to my benefit.”

“What things have been happening, Rey?” Finn’s voice is gentle as he places a comforting hand on her knee.

She glances at him before continuing. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, Poe, and maybe I am, but Finn will understand this. When you have the Force, you feel _everything_ —that’s the best way I can describe it. I can feel all the life around me. Something happened—I don’t know what—after Kylo Ren held me in a cell on Starkiller—something changed, something clicked—he’s in my head. That’s it. It’s almost like he’s sitting at the edge of my consciousness and waiting. We don’t _talk_ , I guess, but I do feel whatever he’s feeling. Sometimes he doesn’t guard things as well as he should, and I see things.”

Poe sits as if made of stone, a million thoughts running through his head, but he chooses to only voice one: “Does he really have feelings?”

“Yes,” she replies, closing her eyes. She is somewhere else for a moment, as if she is locked in a private conversation Poe and Finn would never be privy to. When she speaks again, Poe doesn’t think it’s to him. “He is so consumed by what he feels that he’s lost sight of who he is.”

The white of Rey’s Jedi robes appears almost ghostly in the moonlight. She is ethereal, as if she cannot be touched.

“He doesn’t know what he wants anymore, and that’s what scares him the most.”

 

They walk back to their rooms in the early hours of the morning, trying to remain respectful of those on base who are sleeping, but failing miserably. Finn and Poe walk Rey back to her room, but she breaks free of them and begins skipping down the hallway, her hair failing out of its three-bunned masterpiece. She stumbles around, trying to pick up her hair ties, and when she straightens, victorious, ties held in one hand and a magnificent grin on her face, Poe can’t help but grin wildly back.

He feels like a kid again, sneaking out of the house to meet a friend to go dancing for the night or climbing to the roof after his parents had fallen asleep to look at the stars. Rey and Finn make him feel alive, instilling a weird sense of immortality in him that so far in his life he has only been able to get from flying. He shakes his head as Finn skips down the length of the hallway to meet Rey, her hair half-up, half-down now, both of them shaking with laughter.

They’re drunk on life, and that, Poe thinks, is how it should be. No threat of war or death or talk of battle plans, but an overabundance of shared happiness. An incredible lightness of being, like floating on air.

“Poe!” Finn is practically shouting down the hallway, his boyish charm overwhelming his every action. Not for the first time, Poe is struck by how _young_ Finn is, by how much of the good parts of life he has not yet experienced. He has not yet gone flying on a clear, sunny day, or sprawled out on a beach in ninety-degree heat. He knows nothing of days off or sleeping in, and of friendship, he is only just finding out, but he is learning and he is experiencing life, and that, Poe thinks, is the beauty of Finn’s newfound freedom. “Come join us!”

And Poe does.

 

“Luke, you can’t just keep things from her.” General Organa is regal, holding herself in such a way that she appears taller than Luke, even though she cannot physically be. “Rey _deserves_ to know what’s going on. This is her life. Not one of your stupid little experiments.”

Poe sits quietly in the command center, as if he is not there at all. The general had called him into a meeting with Rey, Luke, and Finn early this morning, but so far Finn and he had only been looking on as they talked about Rey’s future. Rey had just brought up her shared mental connection with Kylo Ren, and Leia is livid.

Luke remains silent in the matter, so Leia sighs and turns to Rey. “It’s called a Force bond. They usually manifest between a teacher and a student, so I believe what you have with…Ben…is quite rare.”

“How do I break it?” Rey asks.

“You can’t,” Luke says. He gets up and walks away from their little circle of chairs, his back facing them. “You don’t get to choose to whom you are bonded. One of you would have to die for it to break, and even then it wouldn’t fully be gone. Dying would only create a hole in your consciousness. A hole that would never be filled.”

Rey runs a hand through her hair. “But why him? Why Kylo?”

Leia shudders almost imperceptibly at her use of the name, but Poe notices. He’s seen her enough like this to know that she still believes her son is in Kylo Ren, somewhere. “I don’t know, Rey. I don’t know.”

“You’re his foil, Rey,” Luke interjects. She looks up, surprise written all over her face. Poe is merely happy she’s getting an answer. “You are everything he could be, and he is everything you could be. There is light _and_ dark within you, something that I have never seen before. You are not, and never will be, fully a Jedi. It is not possible. Just as it is not possible for Ben to fully be a Knight of Ren or a Sith lord. You are a new generation of Force users. The Dark will always call to you, just as the Light will always call to him. It is what call you choose to answer that will determine what kind of person you are.”

Rey only nods, her training in meditation allowing her to shield her innermost thoughts from the rest of the room.

“Yes, Luke, that’s well and good,” Leia begins, “but what does this all mean?”

“It means she is the only one who can bring him back to the Light,” he says, turning to fully face the circle again. “And he is the one who can turn her to the Dark.”

And Poe watches as Rey does the one thing he never thought he’d see her do—flee.

 

Finn leaps out of his chair almost immediately to go after her, but Luke stops him.

“No,” he says, laying a hand on Finn’s shoulder. “She needs to sort through this on her own. You can talk to her later, when she’s cooled down.”

Finn looks reluctant to sit down, but he does so all the same. Poe has to wonder if he sits because he trusts Luke’s judgment or because Luke gave him an order. He wants to believe the former, but has to admit to himself that the latter is more likely.

“Well then,” Leia says, clasping her hands together. “Let’s move on with the people we have left.”

The rest of the meeting is filled with battle plans and strategies. Finn offers suggestions for infiltration, and Poe drafts the air attacks. At some point while they’re talking, Rey sneaks back inside the room and sits quietly, taking in the conversation and adding in her opinion where she believes it fits.

When the meeting adjourns, she is the first to leave, and, Poe is quick to notice, Finn is not too far behind.

 

Poe is almost asleep when Finn returns to their room late that night, curled up under his blankets, listening to the ever-present hum of BB-8. Finn tries his best to be quiet, closing the door softly and placing his feet lightly so as not to wake Poe. He trips over a stack of books he never moved from the floor, however, and curses loud enough to wake a dead man.

Poe bolts upright. “Finn! Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Finn grunts from his position on the floor. “’M fine. Don’t mind me; just go back to sleep.”

Poe fumbles in the dark for the light switch, and when he sees Finn on the floor in the middle of a pile of the universe’s best mystery novels, he begins to laugh before moving to help Finn up. Finn’s grin is wicked as he grasps Poe’s hand, and before Poe can fully process what is happening, he’s on the floor too, the wind knocked out of him.

And then Finn is laughing, and Poe is laughing, and they’re both still on the floor, and they stay there for a very long time.

 

When Poe wakes up, there is a crick in his neck from spending the night on the floor, and there is a definitively human-shaped softness curled around him. He slowly removes himself from his spot beside Finn, resisting an overwhelming urge to hold him closer to his chest.

Before he leaves, he covers Finn in a blanket.


	3. the general

Poe’s next few weeks are full of missions, keeping him in the air and away from Finn. He travels what seems like halfway across the galaxy, trailing leads that always fall dead before he can catch up with them.

In debriefing, General Organa always makes an effort to update Poe on what’s happening around base before he’s sent off again. From her very detailed reports, he learns that Rey has been steadily improving in her studies under Luke, having thrown herself with renewed vigor into practice. She stays late and arrives early, and Poe is told that she has even taken to studying ancient books during meals. Finn has been taken under the General’s wing, and with her help, he is discovering the extent of his Force sensitivity and what he can do with it. General Organa tells Poe (with pride in her eyes) that Finn is a most astute pupil, and Poe cannot help but feel pride, too, for this man who has overcome all odds and who is still managing to surprise them all.

It seems as if Poe hasn’t spent a night in his own bed in ages when the General finally tells him that their missions have ceased for the time being, only to resume in thirty-six hours. He stumbles back to his room, bones weary from non-stop action. His hair is disheveled, and his uniform is probably wrinkled beyond all recognition, but he couldn’t possibly care less; he is going home to Finn.

But when Poe opens the door to his room, he is greeted with the sight of Rey sprawled across Finn’s lap as they both thumb through well-worn pages in geography books, pointing out the most intricate pictures to each other. She fits well in his arms, and Finn seems happy, undeniably happy. Poe stops short in the doorway.

Rey is the first of the two to notice his silent presence, and she quickly gathers herself up and hugs him, tight, exclaiming about how tired Poe must be and how happy they are he’s back. Her endless chatter fills up the empty space in the room, but she doesn’t seem to notice how Finn has not said anything since Poe’s return.

“So are you done? Or are you going back out again soon?” Rey asks, extracting herself from Poe’s arms.

“I have one day, starting tomorrow,” Poe answers, shortly. He finally moves into the room, dropping his bag on his bed and kicking off his shoes. He sees Finn close his eyes for a moment. “How have you been, Finn?”

Finn’s eyes flash open. “Been better.”

“Well, seems like you’re doing very well for yourself from where I’m standing.” It comes out harsher that he expected, and Poe sinks down onto the floor and looks down at his hands.

“Well,” Rey drags out, “I’ll, um, leave you guys to it then.” She exits quickly, and when she shuts the door, there is only silence.

Poe sighs. He knew this would come eventually; Finn had made his choice and now Poe would have to accept it. “You know, Finn, if you want alone time with Rey in the future, you’re going to have to let me know so I can crash somewhere else for the night. Maybe talk to her about hanging out in her room or something because sometimes I just _have_ to be here, like tonight. I don’t think even Snap would welcome me in tonight, and I don’t exactly want to be here when you’re, ah, _with_ Rey, with Rey. We’re friends, buddy, but we’re not that close. I don’t need to know about that any more than a ‘Hey, buddy, can you spend the night somewhere else?’ I’d offer a room change or something, but I know the general is already short on rooms—the base isn’t that big—and she’s preoccupied with other stuff right now.”

“I’m not with Rey,” Finn says slowly.

Poe looks up. “You’re not?”

“No,” he replies. “We’re friends. She came over to keep me company because I was lonely. She just happens to like physical contact after not having it for so long on Jakku. That’s why she hugs you whenever you get back, and she always seems like she’s just _a bit_ too close to whoever she’s talking to. She’s just a very touchy feely person, even if she’s a Jedi.”

“Okay,” Poe says, letting this new information wash over him. He brushes his sweaty hands on his pants, trying to dry them, and stands up. “Okay. Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way. Good talk, buddy.” He moves to walk to the ‘fresher when Finn stops him.

“Poe?”

“Yes?”

“One day?”

“Yep, that’s it,” Poe says, and when he looks back he believes that he’s never seen Finn look so small. He is seated on his bed, legs curled into his chest, his eyes trying to express everything he isn’t letting his mouth say. He looks as if he would be more comfortable running away from all of this, but the warrior side of him wins out, and he stays. Not for the first time, Poe feels his heart ache.

Then he walks away.

 

When he has cleaned himself up, he finds Finn exactly where he left him, sitting in his bed, reading a book. Poe shakes the water from his hair and then falls into his bed, pulling the covers up over him.

“Poe?” Finn asks softly just as Poe is ready to commit to sleep.

Poe sits up, hair falling into his eyes. “Yeah?” he answers sleepily.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m glad I’m back, too,” he says.

“I’ve been, ah, getting lessons from General Organa on Force sensitivity—”

“So she’s told me,” Poe interjects, and Finn looks surprised. “I ask her how you’re doing whenever I get back,” he says by way of explanation. “And, from the sound of it, you’re doing quite well for yourself.”

Finn grins widely and looks down. “Yeah, I’m getting there. I’m working on sensing specific people in the Force and learning how it works, my limits within it and everything. Rey and I already have a pretty strong bond—of course it won’t ever be as strong as hers to Kylo Ren, but my bond with the General is akin to Rey’s with Luke.”

“That’s great, buddy,” Poe says, smiling. “I’m really proud of you.”

“I can feel you, too,” Finn says, quickly, earnestly. “In the Force, I mean. Your presence there. You can’t feel me back, which is kind of weird, but you’re the first non-Force sensitive person I’ve explicitly tried to sense, so I guess I’ll get used to it. By the end of your mission, I knew you were here long before word had traveled around base.”

“Wow.” Poe lets out a low whistle. “That’s crazy.”

Then, “What does it feel like? Sensing people?”

Finn sighs. “That’s hard to explain. For me, at least, each person feels different; they each leave a unique footprint on my consciousness.”

“Oh,” says Poe, but what he wants to ask is, _What footprint do I leave?_

The air feels heavy with Poe’s unspoken question, but he does not open his mouth to ask it. Instead, he lies back down, pulling the covers back up to his chin, and rolls over so that he’s facing the wall.

“Good night, Poe,” Finn says softly.

“Good night, buddy.”

They are woken in the middle of the night by the sound of sirens and a fierce pounding on the outside of their door. “Get up! Finn, Poe, the First Order is here,” Rey yells over the sirens, a feat Poe has to commend, even in his still-groggy state.

Finn is up and standing to attention in less than three seconds, and Poe tries not to dwell on it for too long as he stumbles out of bed, groping for his still-dirty pilot uniform. Somehow he finds himself dressed in it as Finn snaps out of his daze and opens the door to Rey, who is wide awake and already wielding her lightsaber.

 “Poe, to your x-wing,” she shouts. “Finn, General Organa needs to see you in the command room.” They look at her dumbly. “Go, now!” She runs off.

Finn looks to Poe. “Find me when this is all over.”

“Be safe,” Poe says, unwillingly to make a promise he cannot keep. He crosses the room to grasp Finn’s hand in his, for only a moment, and hopes that is enough.

 

D’Qar is ablaze as Poe makes his way to the hangar. Stormtroopers are everywhere, and parts of the base are missing. There is rubble everywhere, covering the ground, covering already-fallen planes, covering dead or dying people, and Poe suddenly can’t stop—won’t stop—running in a last-ditch attempt to get away from it all. The blaster fire chases him around every corner, and he can’t get away. His choice to change into his pilot’s uniform looks worse and worse with every step he takes. By positioning himself as a target, he might as well have walked up to Kylo Ren himself and told him he hated his guts.  

Poe has seen war before, _been_ in war zones before, but never like this. This is _scary_. In his T-70, he is so far above all this fighting; he is safe. Here, he is exposed, vulnerable, like he’s never felt on a battlefield. His confident bravado gone, Poe just keeps running and running, trusting his legs will take him to the hangar, trusting his legs will remember the way, trusting his legs won’t give up on him yet until—

Until he falls.

 

His legs do remember the way, just not the one he thought they would pick. After it is all over, Poe would look back and think that his legs took him exactly where he needed to be, at exactly the right time he needed to be there.

But right now, Poe doesn’t like what he sees.

 

When he looks up from his fall, Poe finds himself at the medbay. Figures, he thinks grimly, and he begins to push himself to his feet when a low voice makes him drop to the floor all over again. The gravelly timbre evokes memories of darkness, and Poe remembers sleepless nights and red flashes and Finn dying and—“Stay hidden, then slip away,” he whispers to himself, making it his personal mantra for the battle. He hugs the ground behind the large piece of the wall he originally tripped over and lifts his head over the edge.

And there is Kylo Ren, standing face to face with General Organa in the middle of the medbay’s waiting room, an illusion of serenity in the midst of the chaos reigning outside, and it is all Poe can hope that this won’t turn out like it did when Ren stood face to face with Han.

“—won’t call off my army,” Ren is saying. “I won’t do it. I’ve worked too hard for this just to give up now.”

“Ben, it doesn’t have to be this way,” General Organa replies. She looks regal, powerful. There is no softness to her form, but Poe can hear it in her voice, just under the strength of her plea. She knows the gravity of the situation she is in, and she knows that the outcome of the war hangs in the balance of their conversation, right here, right now.

“Yes,” he says. “It does.”

“No, it doesn’t. Where in the rules of the universe does it say that you have to destroy your family to get not what _you_ want, but what some supreme overlord of a ramshackle slave army wants? Where are you, Ben? Come back to me.” The general slowly reaches out a hand to caress her son’s face, but he jerks away.

“Ben is gone, _Mother_.” He spits the word out like it is poison. “My name is Kylo Ren, and this”—he gestures to the destruction around them—“ _this_ is what I want. I want to be feared. I _have_ to be feared. You’re _weak_ , Mother. Gallivanting around like life is some game, like loving and trusting people is what makes you powerful? No.” He shakes his head. “Love doesn’t make you powerful. _Light_ doesn’t make you powerful. There is only darkness and pain, and those strong enough—and brave enough—to seek it out.”

 General Organa accepts this speech as it is, never flinching, never wavering in her stance. She is all princess and general and peace and warrior, and Poe couldn’t be prouder to be serving under her command. “Is that what Snoke taught you? That your pain would make you strong? It won’t, Ben. Your pain will, ultimately, destroy you. Come back to the Light, Ben. You need to see what we’ve seen.”

“You forget, Mother, that I’ve seen what you’ve seen. The Light side is waning; it’s time for the Dark to take over. The Light is no longer powerful.”

She shakes her head. “What about Rey?”

Ren falters. “What about the girl?”

“She is light, isn’t she? She is good, isn’t she? She’s powerful, too, even you must feel the connection—”

“She is nothing,” Ren breaks in.

“She is everything, Ben,” the general states calmly, and then Ren is pulling her by the shirt towards him and his lightsaber is drawn and at her neck. Poe immediately wrenches himself to his feet, pushing aside the fallen medical equipment and pieces of the walls and doors in an effort to protect her. He has nothing to defend himself with, no blaster, no armor, but the thought doesn’t even cross his mind until he is halfway across the room and Kylo Ren and General Organa notice his presence.

“You will _not_ be killing her too, Ren,” Poe growls. General Organa gasps as Ren pushes his lightsaber closer to her, as if to prove a point to Poe.

“Poe, you don’t have to do this.” There is fear in the general’s eyes, something Poe never thought he would see. “I can handle him.”

“With all due respect, General, he has a lightsaber to your neck. If I were you, I wouldn’t be telling me to leave. I can help you.” He slowly advances, one hand out in front of him. You can do this, he tells himself. Just keep going.

“How?” Ren asks. “Without any weapon? How can you help a defenseless woman when you’re defenseless yourself? There’s no one to save you either, pilot. You’re all alone.”

“Actually, he’s not,” Finn says as he steps out into the ruined medbay waiting room, an amber lightsaber held in his hands.

 

Not for the first time, Poe is incredibly glad he has a warrior on his side.

 

“ _You?_ ” Ren says, incredulously. “There is no way—”

“Poe, are you okay?” Finn completely ignores Ren. He bristles, clearly annoyed at being ignored by his previous subordinate, but remains silent.

“Yes,” Poe says without taking his eyes off of General Organa. He can’t let her die, he can’t let her die, he can’t let her die.

“General?” Finn asks, walking towards Poe and carefully maneuvering around the debris that had since made up the medbay.

“Been better,” she says, managing a smile, “but it’s not the worst I’ve been in.”

“You _insolent_ —” Ren hisses.

“Don’t you _ever_ talk to General Organa like that again or I will take it upon myself to enact your torture when you’re captured,” Poe says, cutting Ren off. Ren takes his lightsaber away from the general for a moment to focus his attention to Poe, and that is all she needs. She backs away from him to stand by Finn, but Ren does not seem to notice. His eyes are blazing red, with blood or with the light from his saber, Poe does not know, but they _glow_. Not for the first time that day, Poe feels fear.

 “Don’t you ever—” Ren swings, and Poe is taken aback as Ren almost slices through his leg. Poe didn’t think he’d be this close to the fighting when he set out this morning, and he really wants to crawl back into the cockpit of his T-70 where he is safe and protected. Or at least where he feels safe and protected—and in control.

“Tell me what to do—” He swings again, this time across Poe’s torso. Poe dances back; another miss.

“Again.” He swings a third and final time, finally at Poe’s throat, and an amber lightsaber connects with Ren’s red one as Finn steps in front of Poe, blocking him from the assault.

“That’s enough,” Finn says, his voice steely, and strikes.

Ren’s hand shoots out grabbing Finn by the wrist, his eyes never leaving the amber light in Finn’s hands. “Whose lightsaber is this?” His voice is soft, softer than Poe has ever heard it, and Leia’s eyes slide shut, whether in remembrance of the boy she once knew or in fear of Finn’s response, Poe does not know exactly.

He thinks it might be both.

Finn swallows thickly. “It’s....” He pauses. Swallows again. “Leia’s. It’s Leia’s.”

Ren’s grip on Finn’s wrist slackens; his face goes pale. “You promised me that lightsaber.”

General Organa nods, mute. Tears begin to fall down her face as she looks her son in the eyes, her act of betrayal cutting through her more deeply than anything he could say to make her bleed.  

“That was supposed to be mine,” Ren says, quietly, calmly. Too calmly.

“I know, Ben. I know.”

Ren looks down at his gloved hands, and when he looks back up at General Organa, there are tears in his eyes as well. “I have no one left.”

And he strikes.

 

Across D’Qar, Luke Skywalker stumbles.

 

Poe catches General Organa’s body as it falls, dragging her away from the rubble and Ren and Finn’s immediate fighting. He lays her down on a discarded mattress and closes her eyes, desperate to have a better last memory of her, desperate to go back in time and step in front of Ren’s blade himself.

General Organa had been a surrogate for the mother Poe never really got the chance to know; she had always been there for him, no matter what was going on with the Resistance and no matter what was going on in her personal life. Her voice was always firm with a touch of caring, her eyes always serious with a touch of mirth—and Poe knows that he would never find a better leader, a better warrior, a better _friend_ this side of the galaxy.

She did not deserve any of it, Poe thinks, face wet with either tears or sweat—or perhaps it is the general’s blood or, even, a combination of all three. She did not deserve the end she got.  

Ren and Finn fight for what seems like hours as Poe pays his last respects, but is likely only minutes. Ren is skilled with a lightsaber, having trained with it for so long, and takes advantage of all of Finn’s mistakes. There are moments when Poe is afraid Ren would best Finn, and once those moments pass, he becomes aware of the breath he has been holding in. Ren is reckless in his fighting, his anger fueling much of his energy, where Finn is methodical. Finn fights smart, not taking too many risks, and blocks more strikes than he takes.

It is only when Poe notices Finn slow his striking pattern that he begins to think there may be a benefit in calling for aid—in calling for Rey. She knows Ren probably better than she knows herself and would know his weaknesses. Finn may be able to defeat Ren, but Rey is the only one who can bring him back to the Light. This is her fight, and Poe knows that General Organa would have wanted Ren taken alive so that he would have a chance at redemption. For her sake he would try to keep him alive.

Possibly damaged, but still alive.

Poe turns to leave, not entirely excited by the prospect of going back out into open fire, but then stops short.

 

Rey stands behind them, stock-still, mesmerized by the battle in front of her, half-bathed in the glow of the dueling lightsabers, half-hidden by the shadows. Poe guesses she must have been drawn in by Ren’s powerful presence, and can’t help but wonder what she might be hearing—or what she might be saying—in the Force.

 

“Rey,” Poe calls softly. Her head snaps to where he is standing, and for a moment she seems to be staring right through him. She walks forward, as if in a trance.

Something in Finn causes him to stop fighting as he catches sight of Rey, side-stepping Ren’s next blow, and he backs away to join Poe by the general. He sinks to the ground next to Poe, and when Poe’s head falls onto his shoulder, he does not shy away, only leaning in closer. Ren opens his mouth to jeer at Finn for his submission when some unseen force stops him, and he turns around to face the—

“ _Scavenger_.” Ren’s eyes narrow to slits.

“Ben Solo,” Rey replies evenly.

When she finally looks Kylo Ren in the eye, a lifetime passes before they return to themselves. She looks up at him, and Poe is reminded of the silent conversation he saw the general have with Luke when he returned to the base. He looks down at her, and Poe sees everything the two of them have the potential to become. He sees how they’re not Light or Dark exclusively, but somewhere in the middle. They reside in the midst of the gray area, and they seem to say so much in so little time.

And then, all of a sudden, their lightsabers are drawn.

Where Finn and Ren’s fighting was reckless and messy, Rey and Ren’s fighting is a neatly choreographed and extremely intimate clash of wills. It is just as much of a physical game to them as it is a mind game; each knows precisely which cards the other will play, but everything still comes across as a surprise.

They act as if they are looking into a mirror, staring at someone who looks like them, who has the same chemical makeup as them, but who does not think as they do. They share each other’s pain, blurring into each other, crossing red over blue and blue over red until Poe is not sure which color belongs to which person anymore because they both scream whenever the lightsaber hits its target.

When they are finished, both are still standing, bleeding, broken, but still standing, having yet another unspoken conversation—but it is only a continuation of the first one, of the first conversation they had ever had together before they even knew each other’s names.

“It’s over, Ben,” Rey says, and holds out her hand for Ren’s lightsaber. Her eyes are sad, her three buns loose. There is defeat written all over her face, even though she is the one who has ultimately won.

And Ren submits.  

 

When the news that their leader has been taken by the Resistance reaches the Stormtroopers, they retreat.

When the news that their leader has been killed by her son reaches the Resistance, they call for blood.

 

Poe has never seen D’Qar in such a state of disrepair.

The fallen line the ground—friend and foe alike—and the entire base is on fire. The living move the rubble away, trying to uncover fallen family members, friends, lovers, and all around him, cries of anguish fill the air, trapping him in.

Rey takes Ren—who she has begun to call Ben—to Luke. She mutters something about a “Force cage” and then marches off, holding a lightsaber to Ren’s back. He looks as if he would be happier dead than alive, but he makes no effort to anger Rey; there is no fight left in his eyes. People spit at him as he walks past, but he does not call them out, only inclines his head and keeps walking.   

“Proud even in defeat,” Finn says, laughing lightly in shock.

“He needs to pay for what he’s done,” Poe replies, voice steady, commanding, despite the adrenaline still running through his veins and making his heart beat uncontrollably fast. He shakes himself involuntarily. “He’s hurt too many people.”

“Rey thinks he can be redeemed,” Finn says quietly. Poe opens his mouth to protest, but Finn quickly follows with, “She knows what he’s done. She hates him more than anyone. But she also _understands_ him more than anyone.”

“What do you think?”

“I will never forgive him for anything he’s done, but I feel his presence in the Force. He genuinely wants to feel something other than pain. He wants to forgive himself.”

“He, he killed her—he, he, I watched him k—I can’t believe—She didn’t deserve—She was my role model.” And Poe finally breaks down, all of the emotions he had been holding in during the battle rushing out. He cries, joining the rest of the Resistance in mourning.

“I know,” Finn replies, and pulls Poe into a hug that is equal parts comforting and overwhelming. Poe is not the type of person to normally rely on anyone else, but Finn is different, Finn will always be different, and he melts into his arms before straightening up, wiping his tears, and brushing off his jacket. “He will answer for what he’s done, but he will be given a chance to change.”

 

They carry General Organa’s body to the command center and lay her down. Poe tries to arrange her clothing around her so that she looks less empty, but can’t seem to capture who the general is— _was_ —anymore. People are not the same in death as they were in life, Poe thinks, and he slowly clenches and unclenches his fists to keep from crying again.

Finn paces around the center, lost in thought, his arms swinging as he walks. There is blood on his face and clothes, but it doesn’t appear to be his, and for that Poe is grateful. Finn has set the amber lightsaber down on the floor, and Poe shuffles over to it and picks it up.

“The general gave you this?” Poe asks, turning it over in his hands.

Finn looks back to where Poe is standing. “Yeah, she did.”

“It’s nice.”

“Yeah, it is.” Finn pauses, hesitating. “She, uh, wanted me to take over in the event anything happened to her.” Poe’s eyes widen. “She figured Rey and Luke would be occupied with tracking down the First Order, and with you already leading a squadron on missions, she thought you’d be busy enough and might not be here all the time.”

“She’s been training you as her replacement this entire time?” Poe lets out a low whistle. “Buddy, that’s great. You’re going to be a great general.” 

Finn smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just wished it wasn’t so soon.”

“Yeah,” Poe replies. “We all do. But you’ll have advisors like General Organa did, and now Luke is here. I’m pretty sure I can run you through the battle plans and even some of the administration work if you want. I wouldn’t mind. It’s going to take a lot to get this place back into shape.” His eyes twinkle. “S’pose I should start calling you General Finn from now on and you’ll have to move out of my room into the official quarters, but that might actually be an upgrade—”

Finn laughs, and Poe is satisfied. “No, no, you don’t need to call me General, and I don’t think I’m going to be moving out in the near future.”

“Really?” Poe asks, scanning Finn’s eyes for any indication of affection.

“Yeah,” he says. “You feel like home.”

 

And Poe, all pilot and steadfast isolation and commander and easygoing smile, finally, _finally_ feels as if he has found someone who is not worth leaving.

 

“So,” Poe begins, “what now?”

Finn crosses the room and slips his hand into Poe’s, smiling at him.

“We rebuild.”


End file.
